Professional
Learning Communities
Beverly Johnston
Principal
Educating the
WHOLE
Child
Academics
Arts Integration
Fitness
Wellness
&
WHERE
did we come from?
Madison Station
No consistency
in the curriculum
No individualized
instruction
No team planning
or
communication
among teachers
No evidence
of teacher learning
did we
HOW
get here?
“You just have to face the fact,
 as frustrating as it might be, 
that sometimes you have to  
(A Principal’s Voice) 
go slow to go fast.” 
You
MUST
think outside
the
1065 students
91 teachers and staff
National
Blue Ribbon
School
2010
STAR
School
TIME?
One of the greatest barriers to professional learning communities is the issue of time.  For teachers to collaborate together, we need to shift our traditional view of the teaching day.   More time needs to be built into teachers’ schedules to afford them time to observe each other’s teaching, to discuss common curriculum issues, to team together to plan and engage in action research.
- Pat Korenelis
We must also find imaginative ways of separating adults from youngsters at times during the school day for conversation, brainstorming, reflection and replenishment.
- Sparks, 1993
WHEN?
After school
Saturdays
Professional Development Days
During School
What will students do?
Who will teach (not babysit) them?
What will central office say?
Utilize your
STAFF
Computer
Cooking
ART
Physical
Education
Library
Counseling/
Kidz Art
Guided Reading
Lucy Caulkin’s Writer’s Workshop
Arts Integration
Tier Process
Utilizing Student Data to Guide Instruction
Integrated Curriculum maps  
“I believe that schools can become much more than places where there are big people who are learned and little people who are learners.  They can become cultures where youngsters are discovering the joy, the difficulty, and the excitement of learning and where adults are continually rediscovering the joy, the difficulty and the excitement of learning.  Places where we are all in it together---learning by heart.”
-Barth
WHERE
2011-12: Have units created K-5 to include arts integration, fiction, non-fiction reading based on MS science/social studies frameworks, writing, technology, and assessments (pre/post/performance).
School leadership
MUST PROVIDE
a forum or setting for 
professional learning communities.
A principal’s most important responsibility regarding curriculum may be in providing the forum or setting to facilitate teacher curriculum discussions (PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES) and ensuring that teachers have ownership of a written curriculum that is a living and working document.  
-Barth
Madison Station
Elementary
WHO? Madison Station Elementary
Madison County School District
WHAT are we doing?
Madison Station had to be a school
that placed student
adult learning at the center
AND
“There are two kinds of schools:  learning-enriched schools and learning impoverished schools.  I’ve yet to see a school where the learning curves of the youngsters are off the chart upward while the learning curves of the adults are off the chart downward, or a school where the learning curves of the adults were steep upward and those of the students were not.  Teachers and students go hand in hand as learners---or they don’t go at all.”  
Roland Barth
MSE implemented
1 hour 
each week during the school day
for each grade level team of teachers
to devote to adult learning.  
Total of 7 hours of adult
professional learning community
time each week.
BOX!
Accomplishments:
Fall 2010: Principal began studying CCSS.
January 2011: 
Febuary 2011: Teachers began to work with the standards in their PLCs. 
March-May: K-2 teachers began unit development.
are we today?
Community Service
Yearbook
Choir
Drama
bjohnston@madison-schools.com